Talk:Clouds of Witness

Latest comment: 1 year ago by MichaelMaggs in topic The flight and the date

1972 or 1978?

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When was the BBC TV adaptation? The dates 1972 and 1978 are both given in the text. Which (if either) is right? (The BBC also did a radio adaptation also starring Ian Carmichael. Perhaps one of the dates is for that?) --P Ingerson (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

1972 series added. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:06, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

The flight and the date

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I cannot access the referenced source, so I do not know what it says.

The historic importance of Lindbergh's flight was that it was solo. Wimsey's flight is not solo - he flies with pilot Grant.

Date - the article Lord Peter Wimsey states that this was the year after Whose Body? which is stated as 1921. -- Beardo (talk) 20:45, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the date, I see that the edition on Faded Page, page 162 has "... Gerald Christian Wimsey, Viscount St. George, Duke of Denver, a Peer of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on the thirteenth day of October in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three in the Parish of Riddlesdale in the County of Yorkshire did kill and murder Denis Cathcart." Cathcart's letter in that edition is also dated 1923. (In anither edition that I have seen, it is dated "192-" -- Beardo (talk) 20:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
The source is freely available to borrow from the Internet Archive: just create an account then click on the 'Borrow for 1 hour' button. Not sure of the relevance of 1922, but if we wanted to include it, an independent source would be needed - not just a Wikipedia article. I agree that solo pilot is the important issue, and my reading of the source is that the 'word famous aviator' of the story is the sole pilot, with Wimsey a mere passenger. Alcock and Brown are not mentioned in the source, even though earlier - presumably because they were co-pilots, flying together. The other alternative to that reading is that perhaps Mann is simply wrong and that she didn't consider Alcock and Brown. In which case, no special claim can be made except that the flight in the story is any event very early. Happy to discuss further. MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:01, 28 March 2023 (UTC)Reply